Tenth Summer

From its opening moments you will joyfully submit to the reign of THE TENTH SUMMER – a deft, sweet-spirited and instantly disarming evocation of a child's magical ability to perceive and color the world as a wonderful place. After all, what boy should not be allowed to be king on his 10th birthday? For Kalli, growing up in West Germany in 1960, the town is his regal realm, its citizens his royal subjects (whether they appreciate it or not) and Franzi, the girl next door, his princess (if her mother doesn't catch them). It's the summer. School is impossibly distant, and Kalli and his friends/squires have all the time they want to convert the basement of their apartment complex into a menagerie – mostly of bugs, but there are awestruck rumors that a pheasant and even a monkey can be obtained for the zoo. Meanwhile, the grownups go about their business, with their banal worries about jobs, arguments about too much time spent in bars and gossip about the suspect activities of the disreputable Mrs. Hilfers and her two fatherless daughters. King Kalli knows what's important: how to get that monkey! (In German with English subtitles)